Military. a projectile, formerly usually spherical, filled with a bursting charge and exploded by means of a fuze, by impact, or otherwise, now generally designed to be dropped from an aircraft.
2.
any similar missile or explosive device used as a weapon, to disperse crowds, etc.: a time bomb; a smoke bomb.
3.
Also called volcanic bomb.Geology. a rough spherical or ellipsoidal mass of lava, ejected from a volcano and hardened while falling.
Computers. a spectacular program or system failure.
11.
Slang. a powerful automobile or other vehicle.
–verb (used with object)
12.
to hurl bombs at or drop bombs upon, as from an airplane; bombard: The enemy planes bombed the city.
13.
to explode by means of a bomb or explosive.
14.
Computers. to deliberately cause (a computer system) to fail with a program written for the purpose.
–verb (used without object)
15.
to hurl or drop bombs.
16.
to explode a bomb or bombs.
17.
Slang. to be or make a complete failure, esp. to fail to please or gain an audience; flop (sometimes fol. by out): His last play bombed on Broadway. The business bombed out with a $25,000 debt.
18.
(of a computer program or system) to fail spectacularly.
19.
Informal. to move very quickly: They came bombing through here on their motorcycles at 2 a.m.
[Origin: 1580–90; 1960–65 for def. 17; earlier bom(b)e < Sp bomba (de fuego) ball (of fire), akin to bombo drum < L bombus a booming sound < Gk bómbos]
1588, from Fr. bombe, from It. bomba, probably from L. bombus "a buzzing or booming sound," from Gk. bombos "deep and hollow sound," echoic. Originally of mortar shells, etc.; modern sense of "explosive device placed by hand or dropped from airplane" is 1909. Meaning "old car" is from 1953. Meaning "success" is from 1954 (though late 1990s slang in the bomb "the best" is probably a fresh formation); opposite sense of "a failure" is from 1963. The bomb "atomic bomb" is from 1945. Bombshell in the fig. sense of "shattering or devastating thing or event" is from 1860; in ref. to a pretty woman (esp. a blonde) it is attested from 1942. Bomber as a type of military aircraft is from 1917. Bombed "drunk" is from 1959.
an explosive device fused to explode under specific conditions
2.
strong sealed vessel for measuring heat of combustion [syn: bomb calorimeter]
3.
an event that fails badly or is totally ineffectual; "the first experiment was a real turkey"; "the meeting was a dud as far as new business was concerned" [syn: turkey]
verb
1.
throw bombs at or attack with bombs; "The Americans bombed Dresden" [syn: bombard]
2.
fail to get a passing grade; "She studied hard but failed nevertheless"; "Did I fail the test?" [syn: fail] [ant: make it]
bomb 1. General synonym for crash except that it is not used as a noun. Especially used of software or OS failures. "Don't run Empire with less than 32K stack, it'll bomb". 2. Atari ST and Macintosh equivalents of a Unix "panic" or Amigaguru, in which icons of little black-powder bombs or mushroom clouds are displayed, indicating that the system has died. On the Macintosh, this may be accompanied by a decimal (or occasionally hexadecimal) number indicating what went wrong, similar to the Amigaguru meditation number. MS-DOS computers tend to lock up in this situation. 3. A piece of code embedded in a program that remains dormant until it is triggered. Logic bombs are triggered by an event whereas time bombs are triggered either after a set amount of time has elapsed, or when a specific date is reached. [The Jargon File] (1996-12-08)
1. v. General synonym for crash (sense 1) except that it is not used as a noun; esp. used of software or OS failures. "Don't run Empire with less than 32K stack, it'll bomb." 2. n.,v. Atari ST and Macintosh equivalents of a Unix `panic' or Amiga guru (sense 2), in which icons of little black-powder bombs or mushroom clouds are displayed, indicating that the system has died. On the Mac, this may be accompanied by a decimal (or occasionally hexadecimal) number indicating what went wrong, similar to the Amiga guru meditation number. MS-DOS machines tend to get locked up in this situation.
Bomb\, n. [F. bombe bombshell, fr. L. bombus a humming or buzzing noise, Gr. ?.]1. A great noise; a hollow sound. [Obs.] A pillar of iron . . . which if you had struck, would make . . . a great bomb in the chamber beneath. --Bacon. 2. (Mil.) A shell; esp. a spherical shell, like those fired from mortars. See Shell. 3. A bomb ketch. Bomb chest (Mil.), a chest filled with bombs, or only with gunpowder, placed under ground, to cause destruction by its explosion. Bomb ketch, Bomb vessel (Naut.), a small ketch or vessel, very strongly built, on which mortars are mounted to be used in naval bombardments; -- called also mortar vessel. Bomb lance, a lance or harpoon with an explosive head, used in whale fishing. Volcanic bomb, a mass of lava of a spherical or pear shape. "I noticed volcanic bombs." --Darwin.
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